


In Me The Rain Has Stopped Falling

by ominousrum



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, S5 spec fic, S5 spoilers, but also the brotp we all deserve, implied fitzsimmons, season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 10:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ominousrum/pseuds/ominousrum
Summary: It felt like a lifetime had sunk through him, sitting in a cell, hoping for news.





	In Me The Rain Has Stopped Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theclaravoyant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/gifts).



> A/N - I had to write a bit of Fitz and Hunter reunion because I AM EMOTIONAL. Dedicated to theclaravoyant whose Fitzhunter feels on my dash never fail to make me smile. Title taken from Man Is Not A Bird by Broadcast.

After everything, he’s most surprised by the fact he can still be surprised. Surprised that he can feel anything at all, really.

They’d been sitting at the counter of their go-to diner and he was just letting himself ease into the realization that the team didn’t hate him for what he’d done. That his other life whose memories still chimed like a church bell inside him hadn’t ruined everything, even if he believed it should. Jemma had even sat next to him, her hand never straying more than a few millimeters from him on the counter; not pushing to hold his just yet, but there. 

One minute he’d been contemplating pie, the next he blinked and everyone was gone. For one terrifying second he thought he’d ended up back in the framework – that the last two hours had been a dream and now he was left to descend into the waking nightmare he knew too well.

If the military hadn’t burst in a moment later loudly declaring Leopold Fitz was under arrest, he might have sat there another several hours and waited for the dream to come again.

How six people vanished in the space of a single breath defied all logical explanation. It wasn’t until he was left to his own devices in a holding cell that the cold, familiar feeling of dread crept into his veins. They must have been taken – transported somewhere without him.

Prison wasn’t as awful as he imagined, long hours of interrogation aside. There were a few hopeful seconds from the time the officer walked through the door until they opened their mouth that Fitz could hear them in his head saying they’d found his team. Those were the best seconds of his day.

The nights were worse, as he assumed they would be. He never knew if his subconscious would greet him with illusion or horror. Mercifully he didn’t hallucinate Jemma (though sometimes he swore he felt the weight of her head on his chest when he awoke); that was not an experience he wanted to relive, no matter how fragile his mental state. Often he dreamt of the framework – of people cowering in fear at his presence, of pleading and screaming and sobbing. They were his screams now.

It felt like a lifetime had sunk through him, sitting in a cell, hoping for news. Shaving wasn’t a privilege one was afforded in prison, so looking in the mirror was looking at a stranger. Fitz let his fingers run through the curls growing on top of his head, trying to find some small part of the young man he’d been at S.H.I.E.L.D. academy. _  
_

_I know exactly who I am._

He was so cocky when those words had fallen from his lips – at the time there was no doubt, nothing but black and white.

These days he barely recognized anything, nevermind himself.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the ghosts of the man he once thought he was visited him. The man who held Skye as she cried, whispering reassurances that she was different but not any less worthy of love. The man who spent days with little to no sleep while his world was turned upside-down working on a prosthetic for Coulson so the director could feel a little more whole. The man he glimpsed when the woman he loved more than he ever thought possible looked at him as though he were responsible for every star in the sky.

Surprise was the only cohesive feeling Fitz could focus on when Lance Hunter walked through the door in a three-piece suit. When the military offices left them alone, hands thrown up in frustration, he wrapped his arms around his old friend.

“It’s good to see you,” Fitz sighed.

“Wish it were under different circumstances, mate.” Hunter placed his briefcase on the table as they broke apart. Of all the surreal events of the past several months, Fitz wagered seeing Hunter act as legal counsel may just take top prize.

“How’d you know I was locked up?” Fitz sank back down to the chair and gestured for Hunter to take the one opposite.

“You know me, ear to the ground, always looking to save the day,” Hunter smiled.

Fitz raised his eyebrows waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was always another shoe with Hunter.

“Saw it on the news while I was at the pub,” Hunter admitted, clicking the briefcase open to half-heartedly shuffle papers.

“Right, yeah. I imagine it’s a pretty high-profile case. Secret organization and all that.”

“I think the cat was really out of the bag once Talbot got shot.”

Fitz winced. He nearly forgot an LMD tried to kill Talbot. Hunter watched him, studying his face. It was impossible to guess just how much Hunter knew about LMDs and the framework and exactly how S.H.I.E.L.D. was being rebranded as a terrorist organization, but the thought of explaining everything ( _again_ ) in excruciating detail was exhausting.

“How much do you know?” Fitz broached.

“Just that there’s clearly been a lot of shit going down and you lot are getting pinned for it,” Hunter shrugged, “not an unfamiliar story.”

“We have to find them. Well you, I guess. I can’t access anything from in here,” Fitz dug the palms of his hands into his eyes and let his shoulders sag.

“We are going to do just that, my beardy friend,” Hunter slapped the table in confirmation, “I just need to sort out a few essentials and we’ll be good for tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Fitz looked up, puzzled.

“That’s the day we’re getting you out of here, mate,” Hunter grinned.

“No, I should be in here,” Fitz struggled to meet Hunter’s eyes, “I’m responsible for everything that happened. I just want to make sure the team is safe.”

“I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, mate, but unless you’ve levelled up to a god, I seriously doubt everything that’s gone wrong is your fault.”

“I created the bloody thing that did all of this! I helped program an android that tortured and killed people…” Tears were stinging Fitz’s eyes but he held Hunter’s gaze.

Hunter stared a moment, mouth half open as though he were waiting for words to appear in front of him. “Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow at 10 on the dot so be ready.”

“Hunter-“ Fitz cautioned.

“And I’m definitely bringing an electric shaver because your face is making me sad.” Hunter snapped the briefcase closed and stood up, a small nod and a bow in Fitz’s direction before walking out the door.

***

 

Hunter was true to his word, despite Fitz’s protests, and by 10:37 they were speeding towards the first solid lead Fitz had heard of in months in a motorhome of all things. They’d managed to only knock a few guards out rather than a full out assault which definitely tipped in the odds in their favour in terms of stealthiness.

A plastic bag containing a mirror and one electric shaver had been tossed Fitz’s way as soon as he sat down. The brightness of the sunlight and the buzz of the shaver strangely calming – as though they were simply on a roadtrip and not on the run from the law and potentially other nefarious individuals who sought to eradicate S.H.I.E.L.D.

Hunter fiddled with the radio, settling on a station that seemed to play only eighties music. They drove like that without talking for a solid 45 minutes, Hunter bopping his head to frivolous pop while Fitz sheared months worth of hair off his face.

“You don’t have to talk about it, you know…” Hunter began, bopping replaced by swaying along to the ballad blaring through tinny speakers.

“What?” Fitz blinked into the mirror he’d kept in his lap, keeping it close to help get reacquainted with his face.

“I mean it’s alright if you don’t, but I want the record to state I think you should.”

“It’s complicated,” Fitz sighed, “and I meant what I said back there that I deserved everything I got.”

“Which is clearly false, _hence_ the need to talk about it.” Hunter said airily, drumming his fingers on the dash in sync with a drum solo.

He thought of all the ways it would help, not just to talk about what had happened but to talk about it with someone who cared about him – who didn’t just see him as a means to an end, a disposable bit of information. It wasn’t as though he could feel any _worse_.

“I created a digital world that ended up as the staging ground for manipulating everyone into thinking it was real,” Fitz sucked a breath through his teeth, “we were all captured and hooked up to this reality where everything…” He trailed off, unsure how to finish with the appropriate gravitas. “Everything was wrong.”

“Controlled by a killer android?” Hunter asked, eyes never veering from the road.

“And the scientist that created it, yeah.”

Hunter nodded, “But you all got out?”

“Not all of us,” Fitz swallowed thickly, “Because of what happened in the framework, people died. I killed people.”

“I thought you just said that this hell world was being controlled by someone else?”

“It was but we could still make choices.” Fitz closed his eyes as a chorus of pleading echoed around his skull. _Fitz, please, you have to wake up._

“Choices that were the result of things someone else changed to suit themselves?” Hunter summarized, pausing to grab a handful of Cheetos from the bag in his lap while keeping his other hand on the wheel.

“I wanted to do those things, in there. I enjoyed it.”

“Sounds like you were programmed to enjoy it, mate. I don’t see how you can fault yourself when someone wrote a really bad choose-your-own-adventure book and left you to sort out the details.”

“That’s not- I should have been able to stop it. If something can just change everything about who I am then how can I be a good person?”

“You are, though. Nothing you tell me about this imaginary place will convince me you aren’t.” Hunter turned to look at him, quips no longer needed.

“You don’t have all the facts. I hurt people.” _I hurt Jemma most of all_ , he thinks darkly, every tear that shone on her face a vise clenching his heart.

“You’re more than some programming, Fitz. You’re a good man.”

“Jemma said that,” Fitz let a small smile twitch up the corners of his mouth, “that I was more than my programming.”

“Always knew she was a smart bird, that one.” Hunter grinned, turning up a Billy Idol song and launching into full head-banging.

He knew it wasn’t going to be a linear path – there were no manuals for dealing with the kind of trauma he and his team had gone through – but even the tiniest bit of weight eased off Fitz’s shoulder felt _enormously_ helpful.

The unlikeliest source imaginable had helped chip away at months of guilt, and he couldn’t be any happier to be surprised.


End file.
